


The House Call

by zimriya



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Ghosts, M/M, Past Kim Dongyoung | Doyoung/Lee Taeyong, Psychic Abilities, Psychological Horror
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-01
Updated: 2020-11-01
Packaged: 2021-03-07 21:07:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,930
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26884117
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zimriya/pseuds/zimriya
Summary: Taeyong runs into Jaehyun in the hallway outside of the apartment when he’s loitering pointlessly outside the door, shivering, and trying to work up the courage to knock.
Relationships: Jung Yoonoh | Jaehyun/Lee Taeyong
Comments: 36
Kudos: 115
Collections: Challenge #2 — tricks; treats; and terrors





	The House Call

**Author's Note:**

> For 🦑, because this is the closest I’m ever going to get to writing you dotae (and lol, would you look at that, it’s psychological horror once again!). 
> 
> Thank you to 🪐 for the beta! You were lovely. Also thank you to all of the mods for making this fest. I really enjoyed getting to participate and get out of my comfort zone by producing something fully formed under 3k.
> 
> This fic’s unofficial song is [“Blood and Stone”](https://open.spotify.com/track/3SD2pxhfItnw8ghUXFRJPy?si=VscTaKtGS6CZFVLS7rEMZA) by Audiomachine.

Taeyong runs into Jaehyun in the hallway outside of the apartment when he’s loitering pointlessly outside the door, shivering, and trying to work up the courage to knock. It’s just after eleven a.m. on a Monday, and Taeyong hadn’t expected Doyoung to be off work, let alone be willing to do this now. It’s cold in the hall—an unnatural, bone chilling sort of frigid—and Taeyong regrets not wearing more than a sweatshirt and jeans. There’s no reason for him to be loitering. Doyoung knows he’s there. Taeyong brought standard fare for a routine purification: home-cooked food and his favorite knife, sharpened to a deadly point and decidedly not on the list of things allowed into the building. Doyoung had to swear up and down it was fine; he’d called the nice man with the weapon, and if Taeyong ended up going on a killing spree and slaughtering them all, Doyoung would take full responsibility, not the doorman. So Doyoung knows Taeyong is here, and knocking is just a formality, but still Taeyong loiters, feeling uncomfortable. 

It’s only been about three months since Taeyong saw Doyoung. He hadn’t expected he’d ever see him again—and certainly not this soon. That Doyoung hadn’t moved out and was still living in the apartment they’d picked out together… that only really made things worse.

And Jaehyun—

Taeyong pretends he doesn’t see Jaehyun, who looks like he always does. Tall, pretty, pale, wearing the same clothes Taeyong saw him in last—a fashionable button down, well-fitted jeans, two designer bracelets because he only splurges on jewelry. He’s smirking, well aware that Taeyong is ignoring him, and not at all bothered by that. He’s only showing his left dimple. Taeyong gnaws furiously at the inside of his mouth in response.

“Look who it is,” Jaehyun says, and even his voice sounds the same. “Taeyong-hyung.” 

Taeyong keeps ignoring him, staring straight ahead. He should knock. Doyoung is waiting. He was right to bring the food he did—meat and rice—and the knife. It’s… it’s just a routine purification. 

Taeyong rings the bell. 

Immediately Doyoung’s voice sounds from inside. “Coming!” Taeyong hears movement from the apartment, and swallows. He tightens his grip on the bowl and holds his head high. 

“It’s a standard haunting—probably a low-level poltergeist—nothing too daunting,” Jaehyun says as Doyoung opens the door and faces Taeyong with a falsely bright smile. “It started with the little things. A misplaced book, rearranged silverware. His glasses, which he swore were on the bedside table, showing up inside the shower. Nothing dangerous. Nothing bad.” 

“Taeyong-hyung, hi,” Doyoung says in greeting dipping his head politely in welcome. “You brought—” His eyes catch briefly where Taeyong is pretending Jaehyun isn’t standing, then land on the knife. “Company,” he settles for. “You look—” He doesn’t finish the sentence, clearly not sure how to.

Taeyong gets that a lot. He’s never been one to dress the part, but most people do, even in the 21st century. And sure if Taeyong wore a hanbok and had an entourage of people with instruments maybe more people would take him seriously—he wouldn’t be working part time at the convenience store down the block from his shit apartment, and wouldn’t be single—

Taeyong shakes his head and gestures forward with the hand holding the knife. “May I?” he says, feeling like waving a knife around was probably not the best idea he’s ever had, he also not willing to show any weakness. Not in front of Jaehyun. 

“Rude,” Jaehyun says quietly, eyes fixed on Doyoung with disgust curling his perfect mouth.

“You weren’t kidding,” Doyoung tells Taeyong, pulling the door open so they both can step in. “About the knife,” he adds, as Taeyong bends to kick off his shoes, setting down the bowl of food as he does so.

Jaehyun doesn’t take off his shoes, but Taeyong hadn’t expected him to.

“I mean of course you weren’t,” Doyoung rambles as Taeyong stands, holding the bowl again, and faces him. He can tell that he’s not the first person Doyoung has called, the smell of incense making that obvious on top of how Jaehyun was already in the hall. Taeyong also walked through three ghosts on his way to Doyoung’s building, and while it may be Halloween, it’s still daylight. “I hope you didn’t drop everything to come,” Doyoung says, tone apologetic on top of awkward.

“Where is it?” Taeyong interrupts him, trying to keep his tone from sounding too aggressive, and clearly failing. Doyoung flinches, Jaehyun smirks, and Taeyong feels a headache start somewhere behind his eyes. “Generally, these sorts of low-level hauntings tend to favor one area,” he explains, trying to be gentler this time.

Behind him, Jaehyun reaches out a hand and tugs the front door closed with a slam, and Doyoung jumps, eyes enormous. Taeyong counts to ten in his head.

“A room, usually,” he says. “Or sometimes it’s an object.” He chews on his lower lip. “But I’m assuming in your case it’s a room, because I wouldn’t have let you buy anything haunted—unless—” The fact that the apartment is for the most part exactly the same as it had been when Taeyong still lived here is pretty much the elephant in the room, but Taeyong needs to ask anyway. Maybe Doyoung went out and bought a haunted book or something. There’s no shortage of things old enough to house spirits, and it’s not like Doyoung would know.

Over his shoulder, he sees Jaehyun shift like he’s going to speak, but a sharp glare from Taeyong keeps him from doing so.

“Doyoung?” Taeyong says. “Is there any room like that? The office, maybe? Or the master bedroom?” He tries to remember where it was Doyoung liked to be, then adds with a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach, “The kitchen?” 

“You must think I’m stupid,” Doyoung says instead, and rubs at the back of his neck. “Calling you like this.”

Taeyong sucks in a deep breath.

“No, really,” Doyoung keeps going, heedless of the danger. “I used to give you so much grief.”

Somehow, Taeyong smiles. “Most people do,” he says, trying to keep to the point. “You’re not special.” Taeyong can count on one hand the number of people who accepted him unapologetically, and while Doyoung had initially passed with flying colors, towards the end… Taeyong had a lot of baggage—has a lot of baggage—and aside from his family and maybe Johnny, it’s tough being in his life. He should change the subject. “Doyoung—”

“It’s the office,” Doyoung admits. “Sometimes it’s other places, but it’s mostly the office.”

Taeyong can see Jaehyun’s lips twitch, but he remains silent, almost as if daring Taeyong to say more.

“That makes sense,” Taeyong says, trying to keep his voice light. “You spend most of your time in the office, so if anything wanted to set you on edge, it would cause the most mischief in there.”

Instead of looking relieved, Doyoung almost looks even more rattled. “Any _thing_?” he says. “It’s not—” _A person_ , Taeyong can clearly see him refrain from saying, and hates that his hands are full, so all he can do is chew on the inside of his mouth some more. At this rate he’ll break skin, and blood never helped anyone purify a house.

“It’s probably a person,” Taeyong says as Jaehyun laughs, breaking his silence at Taeyong’s expense and throwing up his arms. One of the books over on Doyoung’s television set shudders, before falling onto its side. The apartment feels colder. Taeyong resists the urge to close his eyes. “Speculating only gives it power,” he says. “Come on.” He starts towards where he knows the office is, holding tight to the bowl and the knife. They feel hot in his hand.

Both Doyoung and Jaehyun fall into step with him, the plod of their footsteps loud in the sudden silence.

“What are you going to do?” Doyoung asks finally.

“Offer it food, then threaten it with the knife,” Taeyong says, reaching the room in question and turning on the lights. After a moment’s pause, he turns on the desk lamp as well, setting down the bowl on Doyoung’s wooden desk, and giving the room a walk around. It looks exactly as Taeyong remembers it, although the number of times he walks into furniture suggests a change.

“It keeps moving the furniture exactly five centimeters to the right,” Doyoung explains, watching Taeyong rub at his right hip. “I measured.”

This time Jaehyun can’t help but laugh, bright noise that he stuffs both hands over his mouth to stifle but doesn’t manage to keep inside after all.

Taeyong glares at him this time.

Jaehyun raises both hands. “What? It’s funny.”

“It’s not very funny,” Doyoung says, frowning and looking very offput. “I keep forgetting and trying to move around at night—I’ve got bruises.” He moves like he’s going to pull up his sweater, then freezes, eyes fixed on Taeyong like he’s seen a—Taeyong wants to laugh—a ghost. The room goes several degrees colder. Taeyong reaches out and pulls the plastic wrap off the food, glad that he warmed it up before he came, and lets the smell of home-cooked meat waft around the office. He wonders if Doyoung will notice—if he’ll realize that this is a meal Taeyong never cooked for him, no matter how many times he begged, or left cookbooks and recipes around the apartment. He fights back the urge to cry and does his fucking _job_. The knife has gone cold in his hands, but he raises it anyway.

“Should I leave?” Doyoung says. “I can leave if you’d like.”

Taeyong would—he can tell Jaehyun would also—but for some reason he’s hesitant to do so. “No,” he says. “Stay—”

The desk shakes, the bowl sliding across the tabletop with an audible shriek.

“I think it wants me to leave,” Doyoung says quickly, stepping further into the room and closer to Taeyong in counter to his words. “That’s the only thing I’m certain of.” At Taeyong’s look, he swallows. “I’ve been talking to it,” he admits. “It—it seems to help.”

Taeyong could just shake him. Rule number one is to never address a spirit—or to call it by its name. To name it is to give it power; to address it is to tether it to this world. “Doyoung-ah,” he says through his teeth, because he knows Doyoung knows better. They were together for nearly an entire year.

“It helped,” Doyoung insists, even though it very clearly didn’t. “I’ll go—” He heads for the door, but before he can do so, it slams shut with a bang.

Across the room, Taeyong watches Jaehyun settle into Doyoung’s desk chair and put his feet up right next to the bowl of his favorite food, his eyes practically dancing with glee. “I don’t think he’d be happy if you did that,” he says quietly.

Doyoung’s eyes are the size of dinner plates. “He?” he says. He looks like he wants to hold Taeyong’s hand or something, and Taeyong absolutely cannot let that happen.

“It,” he corrects. He abandons the knife as useless, setting it on the desk next to Jaehyun’s right sneaker and heading for the bookshelf and starting to rummage, pulling down tome after tome and giving them a shake, heedless of Doyoung’s audible protest. Nothing—not in Shakespeare anthology, or _The Great Gatsby_ , or even in one of the law books that Taeyong could never understand why Doyoung even had.

“What are you—”

“Shh,” Taeyong says, giving up on books and feeling around behind them instead. He bends to get the lower shelves, and then gets on his tiptoes to get the upper. He snarls, listening to Jaehyun fucking _laughing_ , and goes for the desk, stepping as close to Jaehyun as he dares—he feels shockingly warm, blazing like something out of a fire, and Taeyong’s throat _itches_ with something that wants to be fear—and pulling open the drawers, rummaging through those too. Doyoung’s stationery scatters across the desk in disarray.

“Taeyong-hyung!” Doyoung protests, finally finding his feet and coming to reinstitute order. “What are you—”

“Where is it?” Taeyong snaps, ignoring Doyoung, and turning his ire on Jaehyun. “Where the fuck is it?”

Jaehyun just keeps his eyes on the bowl of food, both hands wrapped around the ceramic like he can somehow feel the warmth. If Taeyong looks particularly hard—if he forces himself to look _particularly hard_ —he’ll be able to see how Jaehyun isn’t actually touching anything, only pretending. He’s touching the chair—got his feet up the desk—but he’s been in Doyoung’s apartment for three fucking _months_ , wreaking havoc, and making a mess. He’s not touching the bowl. He can’t touch the bowl. He can’t touch anything of Taeyong’s, no matter how much he wants.

Taeyong doesn’t say his name—won’t say his name, but he glares. “Where is it?”

He almost misses it. It’s so subtle that Taeyong almost misses it, but Jaehyun was the love his life for nearly six fucking years, and Taeyong knows each and every one of his tells. He sees the twitch in his jaw, the dart of his eyes towards the right side of the room, and he goes, stepping purposefully, ignoring Doyoung, who’s still shouting at him—asking who he’s talking to.

Taeyong steps on a loose floorboard and Jaehyun goes perfectly and utterly still. “Oops,” he says, as Taeyong drops to his knees and nearly sands his fingertips in his haste to pry the floorboard up. “It’s not nice to leave things in other people’s apartments, Taeyong-hyung.”

The metal of the necklace is as hot as Taeyong’s knife when he touches it, but he ignores the burn and drags the thing free, looping it around his neck and standing to his full height before Doyoung can see what he’s doing. He kicks the floorboard back down.

“Taeyong-hyung—” Doyoung says then seems to stop at whatever he finds on his face. “Taeyong-hyung?”

“Give me the knife, please?” Taeyong says. He’ll finish this. He’ll do this properly. He owes Doyoung this much, at least. Who knows what sorts of things Jaehyun’s gotten up to in the past three months? Besides moving all of Doyoung’s furniture five centimeters to the right, that is. “Doyoung-ssi.”

Doyoung flinches, but he fumbles Taeyong the blade anyway. Taeyong takes it carefully and holds it out between them. It’s not like he lies when he starts speaking. It’s not like bringing food and saying these words wouldn’t normally work. It’s just, Taeyong knows it’s unnecessary now. He knew the moment he woke up that morning all alone. Taeyong has never been alone. Not on Halloween.

When he finishes, nothing happens, until he glowers at Jaehyun. Then the bowl of food goes off the desk and spills all over the floor with a crash.

Doyoung practically leaps out of his skin but doesn’t make much of a fuss when Taeyong disappears to get a mop and broom. He helps him clean everything up in silence and shows Taeyong to the door without comment. Then he makes Taeyong wait, briefly, while he vanishes into the bedroom, and shows up with a sweater Taeyong thought he’d misplaced and a pair of monogrammed cufflinks—one engraved with a rose, the other with a peach.

Taeyong takes the sweater in one hand and the cufflinks in the other and swallows, his chest feeling tight. The knife is back in its ceremonial sheath, tucked out of sight. “Doyoung.” The door is open, Doyoung’s hand white on the handle.

Doyoung keeps his eyes fixed on Taeyong’s throat until Taeyong realizes that he’s looking at the necklace. He puts it away with the hand holding the cufflinks and tries on a smile. “You’ll call me if it comes back.”

For two more seconds, Doyoung keeps staring at the hollow of Taeyong’s throat, then he readies his own smile. “Thank you,” he says.

“You’re welcome,” Taeyong says. Behind him, he can hear Jaehyun make a sound that is less a cough and more a gag. He goes to leave.

“Taeyong-hyung—” Doyoung’s words stop him, and Taeyong turns back around. Doyoung bites his lip. “How long has it been? Four years?”

Taeyong imagines strangling him for all of two seconds. “Five,” he corrects, even as Jaehyun starts counting down seconds, kicking Doyoung’s shoe rack repeatedly with feet that refuse to remain corporal long enough to knock it over.

“I’m sorry,” says Doyoung.

“Me too,” says Taeyong.

In the elevator, on his way down to assure Doyoung’s doorman that he’s not a mass murderer, Taeyong faces their reflection in the mirrored walls. “Are you going to do that again?”

Jaehyun’s standing way too close, doing his best to mess with the ties to Taeyong’s sweatshirt with see-through hands. He doesn’t say anything.

“Jaehyun?” Taeyong says, breaking rule one.

“That depends,” Jaehyun says, without letting his fingers drop from where they’re buried in Taeyong’s breastbone. “Are you going to leave me in your next ex’s apartment?” _Are you finally going to burn the necklace, and let me go?_

“No,” Taeyong says miserably. “Never.”

Jaehyun puts his hands in his pockets, and rocks back on his heels. “Then I guess it’s up to you, where I go,” he says. He leaves the bit about who he’ll haunt next—who he’ll torment _next_ —unsaid, but Taeyong hears it anyway.

“Right,” he says. _I love you. I’m sorry._

The elevator doors open. They walk on.

**Author's Note:**

> Share this fic: [Twitter](https://twitter.com/zimriya/status/1323647146676150275?s=20)


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